Rob Cameron plays wagon train scout Tom Clay, who arrives in the town of Fort Osage to discover he has new employers — Arthur Pickett (Morris Ankrum) and George Keane (Douglas Kennedy).
Not only are those employers charging wagon train passengers exorbitant prices for protection on the trip from Missouri to California, they¹ve neglected to deliver promised supplies to the Osage Indians. After all, if the supplies aren’t delivered, they’ll profit.
Naturally, the Osage go on the warpath as a result. And that means Clay wants no part of guiding a wagon train into a potential ambush. One wagon of settlers has already been massacred.
But those westbound settlers are getting antsy. They’ve been stuck in Fort Osage for weeks waiting for a wagon train guide.
They’re running out of patience and money and they’re blaming Pickett and Keane.
Pickett convinces his pretty daughter Ann to do some convincing of her own, trying to get Clay to change his mind.
Instead, he decides to try to get to the bottom of what prompted the Osage uprising. Ann might not like that answer.
Rod Cameron as Tom Clay, telling Travers about the less-than-utopian reality facing women and children in frontier California in Fort Osage (1952)
Douglas Kennedy as George Keane, mastermind behind the plan to swindle the Indians and the westbound settlers in Fort Osage (1952)
Review:
The film starts off promisingly enough. Two settlers are scolded by a wife for gambling all the time; they’ve been stuck in Fort Osage so long, there’s nothing else to do, they complain.
The scolding glance gets worse with a shady lady in a fancy dress walks past. Then there’s the dad who can’t afford to buy meat for his family because the demand for goods is so high in the town.
But don’t set your hopes too high. This quickly becomes routine in every imaginable way, with Cameron as another of those famed wagon scouts who can do no wrong and Ankrum and Kennedy portraying businessmen with no desire to do right, regardless of who gets hurt by their profiteering.
Well, actually Ann Pickett’s dad eventually has a change of heart, and pays dearly for it, of course.
Morris Ankrum as Arthur Pickett, trying to convince the settlers to continue their journey West with his company in Fort Osage (1952)
Jane Nigh as Ann Pickett, using all her charms to try to change Tom Clay’s mind about guiding her father’s wagon train in Fort Osage (1952)
Directed by:
Lesley Selander
Cast:
Rod Cameron … Tom Clay
Jane Nigh … Ann Pickett
Morris Ankrum … Arthur Pickett
Douglas Kennedy … George Keane
John Ridgely … Henry Travers
William Phipps … Nathan Goodspeed
I. Stanford Jolley … Sam Winfield
Dorothy Adams … Mrs. Winfield
Francis McDonald … Osage chief
Iron Eyes Cody … Osage leader
Runtime: 72 min.
John Ridgely as Henry Travers, a government agent eager to reach California to establish law and order there in Fort Osage (1952)
Francis McDonald as the Osage chief, confirming his tribe hasn’t been receiving supplies promised in a treaty in Fort Osage (1952)
Memorable lines:
Ann Pickett: “I’m sorry. I was trying to convince you to lead the wagon train.”
Tom Clay: “Fraid I can’t apologize for kissing you. I’m not a bit sorry.”
Settler 1: “This place is getting on everyone’s nerves. We’ve been here a long time.”
Settler 2: “Yep, seven weeks it’s been. What do they expect a man to do? Sit around and knit? I’ve already overhauled my wagon six times.”
Tom Clay, arriving in Fort Osage with an Indian arrow from an attack on a settler’s wagon in Fort Osage (1952)
Myron Healey as Martin Christensen, telling Tom Clay (Rod Cameron) about the farm he hopes to establish in California in Fort Osage (1952)
William Phipps as Nathan Goodspeed and I. Stanford Jolley as Sam Winfield, two of the settlers being bled dry of funds in Fort Osage (1952)
Rod Cameron as Tom Clay confronting Arthur Pickett (Morris Ankrum) about the lack of supplies reaching the Osage tribe while Travers (John Ridgely) and Ann (Jane Nigh) look on in Fort Osage (1952)
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